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Recollections on the French Revolution

Alexis de Tocqueville

4.13 · Rating details · 142 ratings · 14 reviews

Tocqueville was not only an active participant in the French Revolution of 1848, he was also a deeply perceptive observer with a detached attitude of mind. He saw the pitfalls of the course his country was taking more clearly than any of his contemporaries, including Karl Marx. Recollections was first written for self-clarification. It is both an exciting, candid, behind-t ...more

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Paperback, 374 pages

Published January 31st 1987 by Routledge (first published 1893)

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Jul 25, 2011 Yann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: xixème, france, biographie, politique, sexisme, révolution-française

Lamartine devant l'hôtel de ville, 1848

Alexis de Tocqueville est un homme politique français du XIXème siècle, connu principalement pour son livre sur la démocratie en Amérique. Dans ce livre, il relate ses souvenirs personnels de la période de la révolution de 1848 qui a éclaté en France, en dans laquelle il a joué un rôle important puisqu'il prenait part à la vie politique depuis la restauration. Ça a été l'occasion pour moi de découvrir une période que je connaissais assez peu, cette seconde république éphémère. Après avoir vaincu la révolte ouvrière, elle élit premier président par le suffrage universel masculin. J'avais beaucoup apprécié la lecture de ses autres œuvres, et étais bien disposé au début de cette lecture à l'égard de l'auteur. Mais si j'ai bien retrouvé cet esprit pénétrant, ce sens de la maxime, et ce style franc et simple qui m'avaient plu, sa conduite m'a laissé plus circonspect.

Tout son système est fondé sur la duplicité à l'égard des hommes et des institutions. Son origine, les malheurs de ses parents, tout le disposait à nourrir contre la révolution et ceux qu'elle avait élevé des sentiments de rancune. Les trois glorieuses avaient déjà été un rude choc pour lui, dont il s'était distrait par sa mission en Amérique. La classe moyenne ayant accédé au pouvoir lui semblait la plus ridicule des choses, le roi Louis-Philippe lui fait l'effet d'un imbécile, les socialistes lui faisaient horreur par leurs mœurs et leurs idées, il n'a guère plus d'estime pour cet aventurier de Napoléon III: le monde entier lui semble soit conduit par des idéaux stupides fondés sur du vent, soit par un intérêt sordide qui rend ceux qui sont atteint par cette passion aussi maniables que des pantins. Or comme il constate également le progrès inéluctable des idées libérales, il s'accommode à contre-cœur des institutions qu'elles établissent, mais s'ingénie à en corrompre l'esprit. Il chérit la liberté, mais les français en sont indignes; l'égalité est une chimère qui le rend malade; quant à la fraternité, il ne l'envisage qu'avec ses semblables. Ces sentiments le confortent à multiplier les expédients pour s'accrocher au pouvoir à tout prix, et il ne cesse de flatter la finesse des manœuvres avec laquelle il dupe la simplicité de ses adversaires. Son but: établir des institutions républicaines qui puissent faire barrage à la "démagogie" en agitant la peur qu'inspire la colère des révoltés.

Pour lui, la misère des ouvriers, animés de passions "cupides, aveugles et grossières", n'est rien. Leurs femmes, qui prennent part à la lutte à l'égal des hommes, n'y amènent que des "passions de ménagère", elles qui pour "mettre à l'aise leur mari et élever leurs enfants, aiment cette guerre comme une loterie". Certes, il sait gré à la fortune de lui avoir accordé une position avantageuse, mais manifestement, c'est assez que ce partage lui convienne pour que chacun se contente du sien. Mais on comprend qu'il vit surtout dans un monde à part, car tout ce qui ne lui ressemble pas le dégoute. Rien ne le blesse si vivement que lorsqu'on manque à lui prodiguer les marques de respect auxquelles il a été habitué. Cette sensibilité le rend étrangement partial et aveugle, lui qui est par ailleurs si pénétrant en affaire politiques. C'est comme s'il voyait les hommes toujours plus noirs qu'ils ne sont, cherchant à mieux épuiser leurs vices par une liberté enrobée de mensonges.

Lorsqu'il rencontre Georges Sand à un diner, entre les insurrections de février et juin 1848, après avoir ironisé méchamment sur ses amours, il remarque : "c'était la première fois que j'entrais en rapport direct et familier avec une personne qui pût et voulût me dire en partie ce qui se passait dans le camp de nos adversaires. Les partis ne se connaissent jamais les uns les autres : ils s'approchent, ils se pressent, ils se saisissent, ils ne se voient point.". Aussi, lors de la première réunion de l'Assemblée: "De la place que j'occupais, je pouvais facilement entendre ce qui se disait sur les bancs de la Montagne et surtout voir ce qui s'y passait. Cela me donna occasion d'étudier assez particulièrement les hommes qui habitaient cette partie de la Chambre. Ce fut pour moi comme la découverte d'un nouveau monde. On se console de ne point connaître les pays étrangers en pensant qu'on connaît du moins son propre pays, et l'on a tort, car il se trouve toujours dans celui-là même des contrées qu'on n'a point visitées et des races d'hommes qui vous sont nouvelles.".

La lecture de ce texte est saisissante à plus d'un titre: l'auteur semble s'y livrer avec une très grande franchise, et offre un témoignage de première main de ce que fut cette révolution. Comme tout semble déjà familier! C'est naguère! On y voit nos institutions y acquérir des caractéristiques qu'elles ont depuis conservé. C'était une lecture aussi intéressante qu'agréable. ...more

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Aug 05, 2017 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: social-political, ebook, classic, history, biographical

De Tocqueville is famous, at least in the United States, for his work Democracy in America. But he also wrote about his home county, and France was a pretty crazy place through the nineteenth century. He was of the nobility, but (partially due to his time in the U.S.) was more attuned to the flaws and troubles of the democratic and republican forms of government than many of his contemporaries. He wrote this book, Recollections on the French Revolution, as a memoir without planning on publicatio ...more

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Jun 10, 2020 Luis Rull rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historia

Uno de los mejores libros sobre política que he leído nunca. Es una crónica, unas memorias, no un libro de Historia, pero la inteligencia y lo agudo de sus observaciones nos ayuda a entender el presente. Hay personajes y actitudes en este libro que, aún refiriéndose a personas en 1.848 en Francia, son aplicables a nuestro tiempo y a nuestro alrededor.

Puede verse como un manual de política del día a día para identificar las personas con las que te puedes encontrar en la disputa por lo público en ...more

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Dec 27, 2019 Alan Johnson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read this book some decades ago, probably in the 1990s. It is one of Tocqueville's splendid works. In this case, he was both a participant in and a historian of the political actions he describes. ...more

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Oct 12, 2014 Inés Chamarro rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir, history-19th-century

Tocqueville was a member of Parliament at the time of the 1848 revolution in France, which took down Louis Philippe's monarchy and replaced him for a Republic; he was part of the committee that drafted the Republican constitution and then was Minister of Foreign Affairs for a brief time the next year. Here he tells his impressions of the whole thing.

It is always interesting to read of troubling times from a first-hand witness, but in this case there is the added incentive that Tocqueville is a Tocqueville was a member of Parliament at the time of the 1848 revolution in France, which took down Louis Philippe's monarchy and replaced him for a Republic; he was part of the committee that drafted the Republican constitution and then was Minister of Foreign Affairs for a brief time the next year. Here he tells his impressions of the whole thing.

It is always interesting to read of troubling times from a first-hand witness, but in this case there is the added incentive that Tocqueville is a man in the habit of observing and reflecting, and his judgements on a number of happenings and characters are fascinating, especially because he is outrageously candid in his opinions and very sincere as to his own conniving (obviously the "Souvenirs" were not initially intended for publication, which allows him to be less diplomatic).

His opinions in themselves are interesting because they come from a man belonging to an aristocracy which had lost all power but retained a certain influence, who hates the feeling of being under the thumb of what he feels as a crass, utilitarian, indelicate and badly educated bourgeoisie, despises a king who thinks only of the industry, describes Louis Napoleon as an adventurer too dangerous to the State to be left unchecked (trying to handle him was an interesting proposition but it ultimately fails, same as Cicero failed to handle young Octavian in a not entirely dissimilar situation), and generally thinks of his fellow politicians only in terms of how they can best be used to serve Tocqueville's purposes. I find it is to Tocqueville's credit, thinking as he does, that he is quite reconciled to the idea of having a republic he doesn't particularly like, because he can see no other viable option for the survival of the State, and does his utmost to protect the system, even though governed by people he doesn't particularly relate to and while knowing that the whole thing is doomed because of the intrinsic contradiction of a strong Parliament and a strong Presidency held by someone with barely concealed imperial ambitions.

I read this book shortly after reading Victor Hugo's "Histoire d'un crime", which also relates first-hand impressions of what happens eighteen months later, when President Louis Napoleon indeed carries out a coup against the Parliament. Victor Hugo was also a member of Parliament (though rather more to the left than Tocqueville), was already opposed to Louis Napoleon himself before the coup and, incensed at the audacity of "Napoleon le Petit", tries to lead a counter-revolution against the government by prompting the people to the barricades (ultimately this failed too, France ended up as an empire again and Victor Hugo paid for his acts with a 20-year exile). It is very interesting to compare the two as a rendering of the times from the two perspectives of a cold-blooded, thinking and rather cynical right-wing man (Tocqueville) and a very hot-blooded left-wing man of action inspired by the heroic romanticism of the era (Hugo). ...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Alexander rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, politics

We learn in this book that Tocqueville typically carried a sword-cane for self-defense, and this fact alone is sufficient to prove Tocqueville's coolness. But beyond this, Tocqueville is frequently noted for his brilliant powers of insight. He possessed an astonishing ability to see what was happening beneath the surface of human behavior. In his more well-known works like Democracy in America, this skill is pressed into analyzing social and political trends and tendencies, but in the Recollecti ...more

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Mar 09, 2018 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

The revolutions/uprisings of 1848 is a subject I've been meaning to get to for over a decade, but there always seem to be a couple of book and subjects ahead of it on my reading list. As it happens I listen to Mike Duncan's podcast Revolutions (which I highly recommend) and he is presently going through 1848 and I noticed de Tocqueville and his book is mentioned quite a bit and I thought it would be a nice, non-academic, first book on 1848.

I've long known about de Tocqueville and especially his The revolutions/uprisings of 1848 is a subject I've been meaning to get to for over a decade, but there always seem to be a couple of book and subjects ahead of it on my reading list. As it happens I listen to Mike Duncan's podcast Revolutions (which I highly recommend) and he is presently going through 1848 and I noticed de Tocqueville and his book is mentioned quite a bit and I thought it would be a nice, non-academic, first book on 1848.

I've long known about de Tocqueville and especially his book on America, but never got around to read anything by him. Glad I finally got to it since I think the book's prose and style is great and it was a pleasure to read. With that in mind I have a hard time believing de Tocqueville's claim that the book isn't written for anyone but himself, but maybe de Tocqueville was just a very gifted writer for whom style came easy. It is easier to believe he didn't want the book to be published until after everyone mentioned in the book has passed away, since,the portrait's of many of the people in the book isn't very flattering and some passages could have had political implications long after they were written.

The book is a memoir from the events leading up to 1848 until the government in which de Tocqueville was foreign minister is dissolved in 1851. It certainly isn't necessary to know every detail about 1848 before reading it, but I do think it helps if you have an overall grasp of the events (the episodes covering 1848 on Mike Duncan's podcast mentioned above or the wikipedia entry covering the revolution in France in 1848 should be enough. At least it was for me!)
As de Tocqueville is a part of the national assembly (and later a minister as mentioned) in Paris you get a personal take and a real inside view of everything that goes on in the political center of the action. The personal portrait's are many and manages, without any circumlocution, to make the historical character's human's of flesh and blood and with both strengths and flaws which serves to make the events seem more close and alive. The conflicts in the assembly, later the government and also to some extent the streets and barricades which de Tocqueville both passes on his way to the assembly and also motivates the troops to attack at one point are all described in detail. de Tocqueville ends his book with the fall of his government, which mean he doesn't write about his participation in the resistance to Napoleon III:s coup in 1851 which got de Tocqueville sent to prison for a short time. Maybe it was a subject to dangerous for him to write about with a prison sentence threatening if the writings were ever found by the authorities, but as someone living with a safety barrier of close to 170 years since the events it would have been interesting to read how de Tocqueville reasoned and how he experienced those events.

To me the best part of the book is the days of rebellion in the streets and especially the June days. Even though de Tocqueville is writing two years after the fact he manages to capture and convey the tension and emotion which ruled the assembly and Paris those days. And here is really the value of reading a memoir of the events instead of a historian's more sober take (which instead usually have the benefit of better disposition and a bird's eye perspective). When the uprising has been (spoiler alert!) crushed and the memoir shifts to de Tocqueville's time as foreign minister the book becomes way less interesting. It might be just me and my interest in the uprising of 1848, but the discussions covering alliances in the government and foreign policy in de Tocqueville's time as minister isn't as captivating as the first 3/4 of the book.
While I'm way more sympathetic to the worker's which make the uprising and their supporters in the assembly than de Tocqueville, I do appreciate his observational and analytical faculties. He might view the worker's as a greedy bunch, full of vices and seemingly without any redeeming qualities, but he does see their uprising as something which heralded something new. And I guess that new thing would be, as Mike Duncan points out in his podcast, the separation of the political question (the importance of constitution, expanding of the voter base, abolition of hereditary class privilege's) and the social question (salaries, bread and water, housing, etc) in revolutions. Before 1848 the political question had been the dominant, with the working class to weak to make the social question an important part of the agenda. 1848 is the year when the working class in at least Paris is strong enough to make the social question not only a part of the agenda, but, in the June days, The agenda. I don't want it to sound like that is all de Tocqueville analytical abilities manage to muster. As a man of the center in the assembly he was in those days in quite a precarious position with the assembly filled with both many feeling the abolition of the old had not gone far enough and many others feeling it had gone way to far. This gives de Tocqueville plenty of opportunity to analyze political character's, events and positions. There is one piece missing though, which is not very surprising given the nature of the book as a memoir for himself of the events, which is an explanation of his understanding and defense freedom. He see himself as a champion of freedom and on occasion he claims he does/doesn't do something because how it would affect the freedom in France, but he never explain what this freedom is or why he supports it. My guess is that Democracy in America is the book for that.

A book I highly recommend if you have an interest in 19th century history, uprisings or have an interest in de Tocqueville. If you want a comprehensive book of everything that happened in 1848, this is not the book for you. If you want a personal memoir from the streets and the national assembly in Paris this year of revolutions in Europe, this certainly is the book for you. ...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Paul rated it really liked it

Much more personal and even caustic than Tocqueville's more detached works like Democracy in America; so the Frenchman's extraordinary perception shines through in unexpected ways. ...more

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Dec 14, 2019 Dario Andrade rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Se fosse possível daria 6 estrelas a esse livro. Seguramente uma das melhores obras de análise política de todos os tempos. Só isso.
Publicada postumamente, é um misto de análise e impressões pessoas sobre os acontecimentos na França de 1848 e anos seguintes. Traz muitas das anotações que ele foi fazendo ao longo dos acontecimentos, o que inclui a sua passagem pelo ministério, durante alguns meses de 1849.
Quando da revolução de 48, Tocqueville já tinha uma estrada bem longa. Já era o conhecido ...more

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Sep 22, 2019 laurentiu added it · review of another edition

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Apr 05, 2012 Alex6279 rated it really liked it

A view of 1848 revolution through the eyes of a minister from that period. It seems to be a clear picture of a difficult era.

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Nov 26, 2013 Amy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: tocqueville

A fun Tocqueville read, he's blunt and its lovely. ...more

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Jul 26, 2017 Derek rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Incredible honest first-hand insight into the workings of a new government. Pretty boring, but ridiculously insightful.

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Jun 15, 2014 Débora rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Very good.

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About Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (July 29, 1805 – April 16, 1859) was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in western societies.

Democr Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (July 29, 1805 – April 16, 1859) was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in western societies.

Democracy in America (1835), his major work, published after his travels in the United States, is today considered an early work of sociology and political science. An eminent representative of the classical liberal political tradition, Tocqueville was an active participant in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded to the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's December 2, 1851 coup, and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution, Volume I. After obtaining a law degree, Alexis de Tocqueville was named auditor-magistrate at the court of Versailles. There, he met Gustave de Beaumont, a prosecutor substitute, who collaborated with him on various literary works. Both were sent to the United States to study the penitentiary system. During this trip, they wrote Du système pénitentiaire aux Etats-Unis et de son application (1832). Back in France, Tocqueville became a lawyer. He met the English economist Nassau William Senior in 1833, and they became good friends and corresponded for many years.[1] He published his master-work, De la démocratie en Amérique, in 1835. The success of this work, an early model for the science that would become known as sociology, led him to be named chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) in 1837, and to be elected the next year to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. In 1841 he was elected to the Académie française.

Tocqueville, who despised the July Monarchy (1830–1848), began his political career in the same period. Thus, he became deputy of the Manche department (Valognes), a position which he maintained until 1851. In parliament, he defended abolitionist views and upheld free trade, while supporting the colonization of Algeria carried on by Louis-Philippe's regime. Tocqueville was also elected general counsellor of the Manche in 1842, and became the president of the department's conseil général between 1849 and 1851.

Apart from Canada, Tocqueville also made an observational tour of England, producing Memoir on Pauperism. In 1841 and 1846, he traveled to Algeria. His first travel inspired his Travail sur l'Algérie, in which he criticized the French model of colonization, based on an assimilationist view, preferring instead the British model of indirect rule, which did not mix different populations together. He went as far as openly advocating racial segregation between the European colonists and the "Arabs" through the implementation of two different legislative systems (a half century before its effective implementation with the 1881 Indigenous code).

After the fall of the July Monarchy during the February 1848 Revolution, Tocqueville was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1848, where he became a member of the Commission charged with the drafting of the new Constitution of the Second Republic (1848–1851). He defended bicameralism (two parliamentary chambers) and the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage. As the countryside was thought to be more conservative than the laboring population of Paris, universal suffrage was conceived as a means to block the revolutionary spirit of Paris.

During the Second Republic, Tocqueville sided with the parti de l'Ordre against the "socialists" and workers. A few days after the February insurrection, he believed a violent clash between the workers' population agitating in favor of a "Democratic and Social Republic" and ...more

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“Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.” — 55 likes

“I have always thought that in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable political part. One thing is certain, and that is that a condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often even leads to success.” — 11 likes

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